Adult incontinence (“AI”) articles are designed to absorb and contain liquid and other discharges from the human body to prevent the body and clothing from becoming soiled. One challenge is to provide a line-up of AI articles that meets the urine containment needs while providing an article that meets the fit and comfort desires of diverse wearers, which can range over several hundred pounds. These challenges include bulkiness and stiffness of the absorbent core, in both the dry and wet state.
The shape of the consumer's crotch on the sagittal plane changes as BMI changes. For adult incontinent articles, this shape influences how fluid flows into and is absorbed by the Absorbent Core. Appropriately locating Absorbent Material by taking into account the shape of the consumer through the crotch can help distribute liquid and help improve acquisition rate. This can also help reduce chances of a saggy and bulky appearance of the article when wetted.
There is a permanent need to improve fit and comfort of absorbent articles. Providing absorbent articles of different dimensions (in longitudinal and transversal direction) based on the body dimensions to provide the right coverage and performance is known. The present inventors have now found that the Capacity Profile of the Absorbent Core within an array of articles should be specifically adapted to the size and shape of the wearer. Adapting the Capacity Profile to BMI driven morphological changes (shape through the crotch) is beneficial to enable proper fit, comfort and protection along the full range of consumers. In addition, the inventors have found a correlation between the Capacity Profile and BMI driven morphological changes that can be used to not only reduce the chances for leakage but also improve fit and comfort for a given sizes of articles in an array. In short, the Capacity Profile of the Absorbent Core should be adapted to the BMI of the wearer to provide for better containment/protection and better fit and comfort.
Body Mass Index (BMI) is on the rise globally for both men and women. In the U.S. alone, more than ⅓ of adult females are now considered obese (BMI>30). This has changed significantly over the past 30 years; in 1980 only about 16% of U.S. adult females were obese. Larger women exhibit different ratios of body anthropometrics than smaller women, i.e., all body dimensions do not simply scale-up as women get larger. In addition, women across the range of BMI may also have very different body shapes not only at the waist and hips but also through the crotch and in particular along the sagittal plane. There is a lack of recognition and understanding of this issue by current adult absorbent article manufacturers and as such consumers' needs are not being adequately met. Therefore, there is a need to develop adult absorbent articles for a wide variety of body shapes and sizes in order to provide an improved level of fit and contact between the body and the adult absorbent article to reduce the occurrence of leakage and improve the overall performance, fit, comfort, coverage and discretion of the article. There is a clear need for adult absorbent articles which are designed for variety of wearers based on their BMI and body shape. There is also a need to communicate to wearers the benefits of such customized adult absorbent articles in an easy-to-understand manner (e.g., some women may not understand what BMI is or know their BMI number), which is not off-putting (e.g., without stigmatizing or embarrassing women based on their BMI).
Thus, it is an object of the present disclosure to describe absorbent articles and arrays of absorbent articles whereby the Capacity Profiles of the Absorbent Cores and are designed to correspond to the anatomical differences and thus meet the consumer needs across the BMI range wherein each size in the array is intended to fit.